One area of food science that I find quite interesting is how to reverse engineer traditional dishes with unconventional ingredients. One example is the dairy-free Dulce de Leche ice cream from Turtle Mountain:

It’s a whole syllabus of food science in an ingredient list. Here are my best guesses:

To replicate the browning reactions of milk, they use tapioca syrup and carrageenan for the viscosity, cocoa butter for the melting behavior, and sodium citrate for the slight acidity.

The soybean and safflower oils provide fat, but the chicory root extract, carrageenan, algin, and gums are needed to stabilize the emulsion.

Yucca extract could be a saponin (soap-forming molecule), which is also used in root beer.

Another example is Babycake in New York City. Here is the ingredients list for the chocolate cupcake recipe (full recipe available here):

1 cup garbanzo and fava bean flour

1/4 cup potato starch

2 tablespoons arrowroot

1/2 cup cocoa powder

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon xanthan gum

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup coconut oil

2/3 cup agave nectar

6 tablespoons applesauce

2 tablespoons vanilla extract

1/2 cup hot water or hot coffee

I’m intrigued by the mixture of polysaccharides (chickpea and fava bean flour, potato starch, arrowroot, and xanthan gum) and the flours also have a considerable protein and fat content. I haven’t been able to find more quantitative information yet, but I would like to compare this to regular pastry flour. The coconut oil is high in saturated fats, so its melting range would be similar to butter. The pectin in the applesauce could help stabilize the batter. I’m not sure about the role of the baking soda.

Yet another example is vegan meringues. Here’s the ingredient list from Angel Food: